Heaven and Hell – VG

Heaven and Hell

Doha / Itahari (VG) The powerful toilet apron glows in the dark out there in the desert.

– Nice. Sarah from Australia says: We’ve talked about having the FIFA World Cup with us since 1974.

The couple is dressed in yellow and green. They’ve crossed time zones to catch the gig in Qatar.

Now they stand just outside South Stadium. Techno music is pumped from huge speakers in the fan area. The start of the France-Australia match is approaching and fans are pouring in from all sides around the oval.

Coldplay plays indoors. The song “A Sky Full of Stars” will catch the audience’s attention.

Because in the sky, because in the starry sky
I think I see you
I think I see you

It does not work Australia way tonight.

When Olivier Giroud sent France into the lead after half an hour of play, it finally lost ground to the men in blue.

Great relief among world champions.

Jerrod drops to his knees and raises two fingers to the sky.

On a footbridge just above the south deck, there are two photographers in yellow jackets. They let the lenses rest almost on the cyan end.

High up, on the same footbridge, stood Tej Narayan Tharu four years ago.

He was 24 years old when he fell.

near has Renuka Chaudhary, 29, wears an embellished dress as she sends her daughter off to school as the VG arrives.

You sit on a spartan chair. A spaghetti of power lines and colorful paint decorates her house.

We are located in Ithari village in Nepal. The border with India lies a few kilometers to the south. Just to the east lie Bhutan and Bangladesh.

Here Tej Narayan Tharu met Prinuka Chaudhary. They were both 16 years old at the time.

First, crush the youth. So marriage – based on true love.

Samiksha’s daughter was only six months old when Tej first booked a plane ticket to Qatar.

– Who wants to leave his children and wife in another country? Renuka says he cried a lot before leaving.

Use the pair No money on alcohol. Stay away from drugs. But he borrowed money to travel. Renuka recalls that the interest rate was 24 percent.

In Qatar, Tej uses his own money to keep in touch with his family back home in Nepal. They arrange to speak together once a week.

After a year working as a plumber, he is traveling home to Nepal.

He stayed there for two years, before poor finances forced him out again. This time he gets a job as a construction worker.

Teague said he worked with scaffolding and carried materials. The workplace itself wasn’t an issue when we chatted, but he did complain about the heat. He said it was too hot to work.

He told his brother about the heat, but he had no idea how hard it would be, adds Renuka.

One day you receive a phone call that changes everything.

August 2018. Tej Narayan Tharu is back in Qatar. Eight months have passed since he left his family in Nepal for the second time. In four years, everything will be ready.

Then the whole world is invited to Qatar. The FIFA World Cup will make the little dictatorship shine for four weeks until the end.

This evening, Tej is carrying building materials. He walks up there under the roof of the South Stadium.

The facility was designed by British architect Zaha Hadid. The price ended up being more than six billion kronor. Evil tongues scoffed at the project. They talk about a playground that looks like a vagina.

“Very impressive,” on the other hand, is the ruling by FIFA President Gianni Infantino.

World Cup president Hassan al-Thawadi said this week that up to 400 people had died building infrastructure in Qatar ahead of the opening of the World Cup.

But only three of these young men have died in the World Cup stadium while working.

24-year-old Teague is one of them.

It moves along the long side from the south, west to east, and high up the hill. It’s dark. The young Nepalese does not see that anyone from the previous shift has removed a floor slab on the footbridge.

So it falls.

Several tens of meters, straight down.

Tej Narayan Tharu dies on the World Cup podium in Doha today.

– This was a tragic accident that could have happened anywhere in the world. The reason was another company that had a contract on the construction site: They removed a floor slab without notifying us or closing the area, Abdullah Abdul Razak, director of operations at Al-Manar General Contracting Company, tells VG.

He struggles to understand why a Norwegian mediator would be interested in an incident in 2018.

– We lost a good employee, and as a family we are saddened by what happened. All employees were given time off and had one-on-one talks afterwards. Razak explains that we changed the procedures and sent more staff for training.

In Nepal at 8.30 am. Renuka’s daughter has been sent to school. She was eight years old.

Semikska didn’t know dad was dead until the coffin arrived in a small village outside of Itahara, in the southeast of the Asian country.

– When she sees the parents of other children in the village, she often talks about how she could go on holidays and have fun with her father if he was alive, says Renuka.

– How do you hear this?

– I have a very bad feeling inside me, – says the widow.

I just made a new stock of rice wine. Bottles are sold at a local shop in the village. This gives her NOK 400 per month.

In addition, there is work in a small field near the parental home.

Two days ago The daughter wanted to watch the World Cup football matches with some friends

– I told her that “that match is being played in the arena where your father died.” She was surprised, but went anyway, says the mother.

Even Renuka doesn’t want to watch the toilet on TV.

– It hurts a lot. It breaks my heart when I see people enjoying themselves in the stands.

The 29-year-old has an old phone without a touch screen. She does not have a social media account. The Norwegian county rebellion is a far-fetched event. She was told that something that is unlikely to mean anything.

VG talks about how many football fans refuse to watch the tournament in Qatar on TV. The situation of migrant workers in the country is said to be unsustainable.

– I completely agree with them. They do not travel to Qatar to have fun. They leave, hoping to earn money for their families. so that they have a better future. But many died on the way. Renuka thinks the entire water cycle should have been interrupted.

It’s approaching midnight. We are located in rural Nepal, twenty minutes drive east of Itahari.

The narrow, almost empty garage is illuminated by green grass against the wall. Five young men are sitting on the floor. They talk and laugh as the match is about to be winded down in Spain’s victory.

Two of the five worked in Qatar.

– It was very hot. It’s hard to work in such intense heat. We just went fighting the whole time. After 13 months, I came home, says Pushpa Bahadur Larky.

He is 35 years old. Today he works as a construction worker in the village. The man says that the economy in the region is deteriorating and the company is making a loss.

– Maybe we’ll have to travel again, he says.

– To Qatar, he adds.

in 2011 Fifty-six percent of all households in Nepal report that they have at least one family member who lives and works abroad. Ten years later, the money sent home by migrant workers accounted for 23.5 percent of Nepal’s GDP.

Larkie earned NOK 2,400 a month when he was in Qatar ten years ago.

Next to him on the floor sits a friend.

Likhnat Gemir is only 22 years old. He just came back from the World Cup country. The stay was not what he had imagined. It only lasted three months.

They found something wrong with my blood at a health check. I don’t know what the problem is. He says they never gave an adequate explanation.

Many migrant workers died in Qatar. What do you think when you see how people in the country celebrate during the water cycle?

The men discuss among themselves. The floor goes back and forth in the tiny garage.

There is a lot of pressure on the workers there. The work is very difficult. The company I worked for wouldn’t give us ID cards, Ghimire says, so we could move freely outdoors without risking trouble with the police.

It’s dark in the village. Most of them went to bed a long time ago.

Usually 60-70 people gather around this garage. The whole village grew up on the equipment. She was ready to open the restroom.

Someone paid 500 rupees. Other 200. Depending on what they are able to define. Interrupting the restroom is not a problem.

– We hope Brazil wins, says one of the guys.

Renuka Chaudhary confirms this Al-Manar General Contracting Company told VG: She received financial compensation after the death of her husband.

Half a million crowns is a lot of money in Nepal. A family member asked Renuka to give NOK 120,000 to her parents, she said. She gave half.

The 29-year-old talks about violence and troubles in the family after she received an amount of money. Many have wanted a piece of the pie.

Finally, Renuka chooses to move on. She built a house with the money she got.

– I would choose my husband over money. I would choose salt and rice over meat and rice.

What can I spend when the most important person in my life is gone? she asks.

Can money help your daughter get a good education in the future?

– She’s still young. Inflation in Nepal is currently very high. I don’t know what you want to study, but I don’t think the money will be enough anyway, says Renuka.

Return to Doha. France eventually won 4-1 against Australia. Now the crowd is flocking from the Al Janoub Stadium complex.

Many of them are Europeans living in the Middle East.

– I think that criticism of the World Council of Churches and Qatar is unfair and exaggerated, says the Englishman Chris.

He himself worked in Qatar. Tonight he was on a match with Carol and Marla. They wear blue, red and white.

Migrant workers receive housing and three meals a day. We don’t get that from England, he says.

– So their situation does not spoil the soccer party during the World Cup?

Absolutely not, says Chris.

They send money back to their families back home. He thinks because they want it themselves.

Renuka dreams That the eight-year-old daughter wants to meet a good man for once. She gets a good education.

– I don’t want her to experience what I went through: that her husband should go abroad and be separated from his family, says Renuka calmly.

– If you could speak to the whole world and to FIFA: what would you say?

– That people just want to have fun at WC in Qatar. But you should also think of all those who have lost a father.

Savitri Rajali in the field contributed to this report.